


Tutelage

by Marta



Category: The Silmarillion - Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-28
Updated: 2009-03-28
Packaged: 2017-10-02 18:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marta/pseuds/Marta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Manwe Sulimo, on history's accidents and lessons learned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tutelage

Manwë had thought himself wise, in his youth. He was, after all the mightiest of all his brothers, and the closest to their Father’s thoughts since Melkor’s fall. He who had once arisen in might would have challenged Manwë once, but he was fallen; neither Ulmo nor Aulë nor any of the rest could claim such a lofty place in the order of things as Manwë claimed as his own. Now Melkor was no more, and Morgoth was not even fit to be counted, leaving Manwë the duty of ruling all under the One. It seemed right and fitting that the Wind-lord might best hear the whisper of the One. For was not voice and breath his dominion?

Perhaps, perhaps. But, after years beyond count of war, he at last began to grasp the truth he should have seen sooner: that there was more to wisdom than what he could voice, more than was even voiceable. He might remember that early music better than did any other being in all of Arda; but if there was any wisdom to be gotten from long years, ‘twas that history was more than narrative. Those golden-haired Eldar-children who camped round his mountain might delight in singing of great deeds, and with that music always in his ear it was perhaps excusable that he might forget those things they did not sing of.

Yet that was not all there was to tell. Manwë had seen the slow arc of history turn upon the fulcrum of the mundane. He might have overlooked them, once, but Varda’s sharp ears caught all, and she would turn his attention where it was most needed – when he heeded her. It was she who had whispered to him of a pledge between lovers, and a quest for a bride-gift. He would have hardly noticed, at the time, for all that it involved Melian’s child. And of course he had watched the attack on Sirion, seen the walls falling and the great heroes massacred; but he might have missed the fosterlings, if not for her soft breath on his ear, and missed those first steps toward redemption. Such were the trills that gave a song its fullness, the pen strokes that marked the progress of true history.

Varda could have perhaps taught him quicker, if he had listened. In a world where even Morgoth’s dark deeds turned things to the glory of the One, how could He have one counsel, so that the actions of any one might be His one desire? It was absurd. The One might know all possibilities in His infinite mind, but He could not know which would be chosen, which accident a child’s footsteps might bring into being. And without such knowledge, what counsel could He have, and what counsel could He make knowable to one bound within Eä?

Manwë had not known these things, in his youth. He had not realized. He had been the master of breath, of what was said, but he had not bothered to hear. That could still be changed – or so he hoped. It seemed worth the attempt, in any case.


End file.
